Language Revitalisation and Reversal in Mozambique: The Case of Xironga in Maputo

Abstract

Language revitalisation and language reversal are two important operations of language revival as a language-planning goal. This paper looks at revitalisation efforts regarding Xironga, a Bantu language spoken by 600,000 people (2.8% of the country's total population) in thesouthernregion, andespecially in Maputo City, thecapital of Mozambique. An increasing awarenessofthepotential threat to Xironga hasledto a fewrevitalisation initiatives in the past decade, thus beginning the reversal of the cross-generational shift trend from Xironga monolingualism or Xironga bilingualism (together with Portuguese, the official language) to Portuguese monolingualism. This paper equally looks at circumstances in whichXironga hasrecently begun to be usedmoreprominently, especially as a legal working language by the Maputo Municipal Council Assembly authorities. Implications for language-planning theory within a maintenance-oriented framework are also presented.